Film adaptations of video games have, for the most part, never been given the particularly careful attention they require to not only make a decent film, but to make sense of lengthy and convoluted plotlines whilst remaining faithful to their original incarnations. Whilst Christophe Gans’ 2006 Silent Hill adaptation will never rank amongst the best horror films ever made, it was a solid effort considering the increasingly awful list of terrible video game adaptations (Resident Evil, Super Mario Bros., Mortal Kombat, Tomb Raider and Alone in the Dark are just a few of the abominations we’ve endured). Although it was confusing and a little daft, it was creepy and very faithful to the source material (even to the point of using the original game music as its soundtrack, and using interesting camera angles taken straight from the games. It was a promising vision for the future of video game adaptations, showing that it was possible to make them decent pieces of entertainment that can work as a passive experience (rather than an interactive, immersive one) when executed well.
So enter Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, which flushes all that down the toilet.
The film employs some of the laziest writing ever committed to film, and right away discovers the difficulty of over-complicating a 90-minute film experience by cramming in content and detail from the countless hours of the original games – such as the lazy cover-up of names. The first film was a rough adaptation of the Silent Hill game series, using aspects from the first four games. The Harry Mason character from the first game became Rose da Silva in the movie, a woman who looked a bit like Heather Mason (the protagonist of Silent Hill 3). In deciding that in fact a direct adaptation of Silent Hill 3 should be made after all (resulting in Silent Hill: Revelation 3D), the filmmakers have already found themselves in a mess trying to make sense of the original games’ confusing plot that they didn’t really use in the first movie (in that Heather Mason is the reincarnation of both Cheryl Mason – the game’s version of ‘Sharon’ – and Alessa Gillespie) and in trying to add in Harry Mason’s character that they had replaced with Rose da Silva. This results in a really sloppy explanation that Sharon da Silva and Christopher da Silva had been changing identities to protect themselves from the Order, becoming Heather and Harry Mason. And, folks, this occurs in just the first few minutes. It’s all downhill from here.
Game fans may delight in some of the little game details thrown in – such as Robbie the rabbit and the original game soundtrack (which holds up surprisingly well in a live-action experience) – but ultimately fans and new audiences alike will be left stranded by the terrible writing. Silent Hill itself feels like an afterthought as Heather Mason (Adelaide Clemens) breezes through the town, spending only about 2 minutes in each location, avoiding all the pointless confrontations with classic Silent Hill creatures. No tension or suspense is raised; we are only presented with meaningless gore and torture that is apparently supposed to shock us. More and more horror films are going down this route, replacing engaging characters that we empathise with and fear for with a slideshow of violence that means nothing. The only interesting and frightening sequence in the whole film is a scene with the games’ infamous Nurses, which are wonderfully and terrifyingly portrayed (particularly creepy is their seemingly desperate urge to break free of their statuesque stance, shaking in place). There is so much focus on the ridiculous storyline that the town itself is never given time to shine. It could’ve been set anywhere, with a girl being pursued by a cult. And this is a real shame, as Silent Hill represents so much.
Silent Hill opens up the doors to the deepest, darkest parts of the psyche. It draws upon your nightmares and manifests them in front of you, forcing you to question yourself and your very sanity. Silent Hill 2 – a slow burning and torturous yet incredibly satisfying experience showed off the town at its very best. Silent Hill: Revelation 3D reverses this, creating a fast-paced, half-baked experience of the dark town that forgets what it really represents.
The inclusion of Pyramid Head is rather baffling, even though he is a series fan favourite, it makes no sense to the story – he was a manifestation of the psyche of Silent Hill 2 character James Sunderland, a representation of his masochistic guilt. In the movies, he seems to serve purely as gore-inducing fan service (falling into the same Paul W.S. Anderson Resident Evil traps of using game aspects just for the sake of having them, without incorporating them well into the story).
Some of the special effects are great, from the falling ash of the town to the crumbling walls as the darkness sets in, others are just downright terrible – such as the Mannequin creature that looks like it may have been impressive about 15 years ago. The 3D aspects are as gimmicky as you would expect them to be – blood and knives flying at your face, failing to compensate for the poorly executed film.
The characters are extremely underdeveloped and poorly scripted. Adelaide Clemens and Sean Bean do the best they can with the awful writing, but Kit Harrington’s Vincent is one of the most bland, forgettable characters ever to grace a horror film. Sadly the talents of Carrie Ann Moss, Malcolm McDowell and Deborah Kara Unger are entirely wasted in what can barely be described as ‘cameo roles’, totally undermining their characters and particularly diminishing the threats of Claudia and Leonard Wolf.
For the world of the video game film, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is a crushing disappointment, a failure of such promise delivered by the first instalment. Perhaps could be the movie that kills this franchise altogether. The film takes itself too seriously, and overcomplicates itself, resulting in a half-hearted horror effort that fails to scare or impress the game fans. Perhaps our hopes for a truly great video game film now only lie in the upcoming Michael Fassbender-produced-and-acted Assassin’s Creed adaptation, or in Takashi Miike’s appropriately bonkers Ace Attorney movie, which will hopefully see a release soon in the West. Unfortunately, the effort stops with the pathetically underwhelming Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.
